What is HARPS?
23-Oct-2009
HARPS is not the same as the mysterious Alaskan installation
known as HAARP, which is mentioned in this week's
Dreamland. HARPS, located in Chile, stands for High
Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher and is part of the
huge ESO international telescope system, which is searching
for new planets. Since it powered up 5 years ago, HARPS has
discovered more than 75 new planets in 30 difference solar
systems, and recently, they've discovered 32 more. Will some
of them have
intelligent life?
ESO (European Southern Observatory) has telescopes in 14
countries, including Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic,
Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands,
Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK.
ESO.org quotes astronomer Xavier Bonfils as saying, "By
targeting dwarfs [dwarf stars, like our sun] and harnessing
the precision of HARPS we have been able to search for
exoplanets in the mass and temperature regime of super-
Earths, some even close to or inside the habitable zone
around the star."
Maybe we'll eventually discover where those
Grays
are coming from (and if you're a
subscriber,
you can STILL listen to this incredible Dreamland show!)
For more information, click here.
|
